Sphere of Influence
by anguauberwald
Summary: Chapter 1 of a new ongoing fic. Willow and Xander seek the bones of those long-departed to give them a proper burial. But what happens when they can't find what they are looking for? Meanwhile a new and terrible threat is rising in Scotland. Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

**Standard disclaimer:** Alas, I do not own any of the characters, locations, wonderful powers etc. etc. etc. That's why we call it fan-fic. They belong to Mutant Enemy type people the likes of Joss Whedon. I hope they're making the most of it!

**Feedback:** Oh yes please. I would love to hear back about it. I haven't written owt but essays in about 5 years so forgive me if it isn't up to scratch.

Sphere of Influence

**Chapter one**

Willow raised a dirt-encrusted hand to her face and brushed away the strand of fiery hair that had been cast into her eyes. She sighed as she looked at the devastation that surrounded her. In the bottom of the gaping maw that was once Sunnydale, amongst piles of dirt and detritus, she and Xander had been searching for days. She was beginning to think that the idea had been stupid to begin with, never truly plausible. But once Willow had an idea in her rapidly buzzing little brain it could be a trifle hard to shift. So now here they were; dirty, sweating and more than a little bit depressed, all because she just couldn't let sleeping dogs die. She frowned at that thought. Most definitely not the most tactful, or for that matter accurate, of phrases. Grabbing her shovel from the pile of rubble it was leaning on, she turned her back on what she though may once have been a chapel and again started digging. When her blade clanged off something stone a few moments later she assumed it was yet another piece of church masonry, and cursed her bad luck. Sighing, the witch bent down to shift the chunk of rock. As her hands touched upon it it a frown formed between her eyebrows. This was not just a piece of rubble, it was another gravestone. Super. The last thing she needed right now was more disappointment.

"Hey. Whatcha got there?" She jumped at the sudden sound, scraping her hand on the stone as she span round. Xander stood over her shoulder, a wide grin on his face. Apparently not even the eternal torture of digging through the wreckage of what was once their home could keep his natural enthusiasm at bay. His eye patch was folded back onto his head, revealing the empty socket and white scar tissue that he usually kept so carefully covered. Seeing the changes to the visage of her best friend still made Willow shudder inside, although she was getting so much better at hiding that fact.

"Don't do that! How many times? Do you WANT to be a frog?" She swiped at his legs, pouting up at him as he hopped backwards to avoid her.

"Woah! I'm just getting my stealth on." His grin got a little wider. "Gotta be on top of my game seeing as all these little girly-girls keep whooping my ass."

She smiled at that, turning back to the headstone. Since the potentials had started popping up out of every corner of the woodwork the pseudo-Watcher had had his work cut out for him. He probably found Sunnydale clean-up genuinely less stressful than life in bonnie Scotland right now. Willow turned her attention back to the block of granite half-buried in the rubbish before of her. She was beginning to uncover the lettering under the grime and, as her eyes fell upon the text, she found her heart skip a beat.

"Xander. I think it's..." Her voice trailed off as the tears began to prick her eyes. She barely noticed, turning to her oldest friend as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Sweat dripped down Xanders concerned face, pooling around the collar of his shirt. Later she'd be surprised that she had picked up on such a banal detail. It felt like the world had stopped spinning as he lent over her to brush the last of the muck away, revealing what she had both hoped for and feared. The stone bore an engraving, elegant in its simplicity, brutal in it's reality; 'Tara MacLay. Oct. 16 1980 – May 7, 2002'.

"Will? You okay?" Xander reached out to the young girl and pulled her closer, enveloping her petite shoulders with an arm. He hated to see her like this; it was slightly like watching a kicked puppy being poked with a stick, and it hurt his heart. It had been hard enough when they had uncovered Joyce's headstone a few days ago. They had both held it together but he'd heard her crying in the night; great gulping tears as if the world was about to end. Death just brought back too many memories these days. And none of them were good.

"Yeah." She nodded gently, extracting herself from Xanders' encompassing arm. She was crying now, the tears dribbling out, tracing tracks through the dirt on her face.

"I'm fine. It's just...weird. You know? Sort of... just... weird. Should it be weird?"

"Considering the circumstances…. yeah. It should be weird. You're permitted a minor wiggins here."

She looked up at him, wiping a hand across her eyes to stem the tears she had just realised where there. A small smile crept across her face.

"Just a minor one?"

"Well major ones tend to end in dark roots, veins and generalized badness these days so...yep. Minor. Please?" He asked. The witch rolled her eyes at that. It would appear that her days as evil Willow were now long enough ago that people were prepared to give her a good ribbing for them. She ran over that thought again. Wow. She had clearly been spending too much time with Giles; Britishisms were even popping up in her thoughts.

"O.K we have a deal. Minor wiggins only."

"Great. Well I guess I better get on with the manly, manly lifting."

Xander grinned at her again, flipped his eye patch down and proceeded to extricate the tombstone from it's resting place. As he hefted it back towards the large black van they were using as a portable base of operations-cum-home, Willow steeled herself for what was to come. She was going to have to perform some major mystical mojo, and magic was still a major event for her. Sometimes it made her feel as if she was balancing on the head of a pin and she was never sure when she would lose herself to topple into the darkness all around. Kennedy helped out, sure, and the young slayer was getting surprisingly good at predicting when Willow was in over her head, but everything had been so much easier when she'd had Tara to keep her centered. Finding the stone had brought it back to her, had caused the hole inside to re-open. It ached. What hurt all the more was that all she could do now was make sure that the woman she had loved got a decent burial. Again. This time she would make sure that she was there to say goodbye.

**To be continued...**

_(Well asuming you like it that is. )_


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry about the really short chapters, I'm just getting back into the swing of things! Please R & R (if you don't mind.) Thanks.

**Chapter 2**

He tapped his fingers on the rim of the bubbling cauldron in front of him, long, carefully manicured nails clicking against the iron. Katamerin the Great found it hard to stay still these days, some part of his body was always moving, tapping, twitching. He supposed it was the one of the painful side-effects of six years imprisonment, but that fact didn't make him feel any better about it. Consciously stilling his twitching fingers the muscle-bound man stood up, his long black hair swinging across his back. He winced as a patch of red, noxious-smelling liquid leapt from the writhing brew and landed on his bare chest, burning the skin.

"Shit." His hand leapt up to his bicep, causing the shadows in the large room to dance wildly in the flickering candlelight. Gritting his teeth, he wiped the mixture of blood and dissolved skin from his chest, flicking it onto the floor, where it fizzed quietly. The potion was getting hungry.

"Albeth!" He called, his deep voice reverberating through the room, "Get down here!"

He waited patiently then, his fist clenching and unclenching as he listened out for the footsteps approaching from the top floor of the building. He raised his eyes toward the door as a young man stumbled in, hurriedly pulling a long black robe on over his t-shirt and jeans. Katemerin raised an eyebrow as Albeth jogged up. He found it hard to avoid devouring him with his eyes; after all he'd always been a sucker for pretty boys.

"Wha-what is it you desire master?" The robed man asked. Panting and attempting to look composed, he ran a hand through his slightly damp blonde hair.

Katemerin smiled, his lips forming the words almost seductively; "Power. The world. The destruction of the Slayers." He paused, "and I could do to lose ten pounds."

Albeth frowned, light eyebrows knotting together as he looked at his master questioningly.

The larger man coughed. "Mostly the, umm, power and death." His eyes darted away quickly as he tried to remember the reason for summoning the acolyte. Of course. "It is hungering. We need a new sacrifice. Get," he thought about it for a moment, mulling the options over in his head, "Get the girl."

The blonde nodded, before drawing his hood over his head. Slowly, he walked into the shadows.

Katamerin waited for him to return, one foot tapping on the cold stone ground. When he realised what he was doing he stopped, listening instead to the struggle going on in the room next door. Sometimes he wondered if he had gone mad. If he was one of those super-villains that everyone always talked about. Was it wrong to have a drive? A purpose in life? So his was revenge, there was nothing wrong with that. At least as far as he could see. He heard the crackling, hot sound of a tazer going off, followed by a muffled thump, and smiled. No. He wasn't crazy. On the contrary, setting up the Slayers as an essential part of his own rise to ultimate power had been a stroke of utter genius. After all it had been the Slayer that trapped him in the first place. He wondered then if "him" was really the right word. It seemed like the most appropriate pronoun under the circumstances. People tended to get angsty when phrases like "hir" were thrown about, after all. His reverie was interrupted by a loud bang and the sound of footsteps.

A hooded figure emerged from the darkness, a limp body lying in his arms. Katamerin pulled a wicked-looking knife from his belt as Albeth brought the body to him. It was a young girl around 10 years of age, her frame limp and lifeless, dark hair draped over the young mans arm. The master traced one razor-sharp nail along the line of her cheek, smiling wickedly as her eyes twitched beneath their lids. She reminded him so much of his own daughter. Of course she was long gone and far away, but he still wished that he had slaughtered her as a babe.

Together the men carried her to the cauldron, holding her above its gaping maw whilst it spat angrily at them, boiling and popping as noxious gasses rose from its depths. The blade of the knife glinted in the candlelight, cold and immutable as it sliced through the girls milky skin. Blood poured from her neck, hissing as it hit the hot liquid. She struggled then, and tried to call out as the pain roused her from unconsciousness. She was dead before the sound reached her lips. The cauldron calmed, its appetite sated with blood, and Katamerin began to chant, his eyes flashing blood-red.

"Insmail Kom D'Quatar. Insmail Kom Weshna. Raggak Q'Malik Rush Karum!!" Words flowed like water from his lips, filling the room with sound. His young acolyte clamped his hands to bleeding ears as the echoes in the near-empty chamber repeated the words back to him, an eternal feedback loop that shook the structure to its very core.

For the first time in a long time, Katemerin The Great felt totally still.

**To be Continued...** _(again.)_


End file.
